For any of my readers that might not know, I've added another fic which is from the time when Sasuke and Emiko first met. It's just a single for now but if a lot of people like the idea I can write more as well as carrying on with the main.
Something weird happened later that afternoon. Sasuke had taken Yoichi to do some training just outside the village to give me time to make the cake to surprise our birthday boy and I was just picking up the necessary ingredients when I was approached by an unnerving stranger. I felt his eyes piercing into my back long before he said a word.
"Hello, do you live in this village?" His booming voice felt deep enough to shake the walls of the small shop we were standing in.
I shook my head in reply and handed my money over to the elderly man at the counter.
"I'm travelling with some family and we were looking for somewhere to eat." he added, attempting a smile but the gesture did little to put me at ease. He was enormous, his body looked like pure muscle, he had long grey hair that fell around his narrowed eyes and a large sword strapped to his back.
"I can show you to the restaurant!" The old man behind the counter piped up. "I've lived here my whole life."
"Thank you." The stranger said but he sounded far from grateful, almost like he hadn't been searching for somewhere to eat at all.
Picking up my bag, I quickly headed back to the Inn. If I couldn't sense Sasuke nearby I might have worried, I don't think I would have stood much of a chance against a guy like that but my husband wouldn't have had a problem, he was Uchiha Sasuke after all.
Mei, the lady who ran the Inn, was pleased to have some company. She showed me into the kitchen and made us some tea as I started measuring the flour and sugar. After taking some food and tea to her daughter who was resting we started to chat.
"You have such a beautiful family. How did you meet your husband?"
The question she had chosen was a perfectly innocent one but the honest answer was nowhere near as innocent.
"Sasuke was passing through my village and we just kind of fell in love." I shrugged, giggling. I could hardly tell her that the way we had fucked each other had been so amazing that I never even wanted to look at another man again!
She kind of reminded me of my grandmother, open and caring, I found it easy to tell her little bits and pieces of our family life and in turn she told me about her family. She was quite concerned for her daughter, the father of her unborn child wasn't interested in raising a child. He had left months ago and she was due any day. It had been getting Mei down a lot but she had felt her spirits lifting a little thanks to Yoichi. Seeing a child so happy and full of life had given her a fresh hope for her unborn grandchild.
Just under an hour later, the cake was made and I was on my way to confront Sasuke. Before we'd parted ways I'd told him that he didn't need to keep an eye on me but I'd definitely felt him constantly a few meters away. I wasn't angry, in fact I was glad he had so I could ask him about that man.
"He was probably hitting on you." Was Sasuke's breezy reply.
His attitude towards another man trying to seduce me was incredible, at first I thought maybe I had misheard him but after going over it several times in my mind and then studying his cool expression I realised that I had heard him properly after all.
"And that's ok with you?" I asked, raising my eyebrow suspiciously.
"Well, you didn't look like you were interested." He shrugged, the hint of a smile playing on his lips.
"So you were following me!" I whispered.
We were back in our cosy room at the Inn, Yoichi had decided to go for a power nap before getting something to eat, even an hour of training with Sasuke was tough. I couldn't help but wonder if Sasuke was pushing Yoichi too much. Was he expecting so much from him because he was an Uchiha or was it his way of trying to keep our son safe in a world where a ninja had to always be prepared? The funny thing was that Yoichi never complained, not once. No matter how difficult or how much he pushed him, he always enjoyed spending time with his father.
"Tecniqually it was a clone. I was training with Yoichi." He had no problem at all admitting it, he never felt the need to hide the fact from me that he liked to know where I was and what I was doing when we weren't together. It turned him on to think of me, always aware of his eyes on me, no matter where I went or who I spoke to.
I sat down in a huff. Sasuke not being insanely jealous for once actually bothered me! He came and sat by me on the bed, planting a soft kiss on my neck. Watching my frown lift and my smile return he decided to just tell me the truth.
"Something didn't feel right about him, so I had another clone follow him but he was fast. He disappeared not long after talking to you." Noticing the look of concern appearing on my face he continued, "He was probably just some loser ninja looking to challenge an Uchiha."
I felt his hand on top of the Uchiha crest on my back. Being challenged for being a part of Sasuke's clan wasn't something that had occurred to me before, I definitely needed to get stronger, relying on Sasuke to protect me all the time felt awful.
I sighed and closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of Sasuke's hand, which was now massaging my back and neck. His fingers made any tension in my body disappear.
"So you weren't jealous at all then?"
"Me? Jealous? That would be like you being jealous of a medical ninja touching my bare back." he teased.
"Exactly and that would be almost as silly as you feeling jealous of Taku-san." I retorted slyly.
"You didn't see the way he was looking at you!" Sasuke protested, abandoning the playful back and forth we had been enjoying. He could only pretend for so long not to be filled with a bitter jealousy the moment another man's eyes fell on me. As time passed us by he expected that he would be able to see me having a perfectly normal conversation with a man and not have a problem with it but it seemed with each passing day he found himself growing increasingly possessive. Me and Yoichi were his whole world after all.
I turned to face him with a triumphant smile, "I did and he definitely wasn't looking at me the way you are right now."
Sasuke blinked in confusion, he hadn't even realised how pumped up he had been getting. He loosened the tight grip that his hand had unconsciously formed around the back of my neck, instead placing it on my cheek.
"And how am I looking at you, Emi?"
"Like you want to fu-"
"What a good nap!" Yoichi suddenly shrieked.
Sasuke went straight for the window, flinging it wide open. He felt hot, way too hot, he needed some air.
Yoichi was desperate to head back out to the beach but when I told him we had a surprise for him he had a complete change of heart. Returning to where we had eaten breakfast that morning, we were all shocked to find it full of birthday decorations. Colourful balloons, banners and ribbons, someone had clearly gone to a lot of effort.
"How did you find the time to do all of this?" Sasuke whispered to me.
"It wasn't me!" I replied just as quietly.
Mei suddenly appeared from the kitchen, "Happy birthday, Yoichi-kun!" she beamed.
"Thank you!" He grinned, already preoccupied with tying as many balloons to himself as possible.
"We just wanted to make sure Yoichi had a lovely day, you are our guests after all." Mei said in response to the confused looks on mine and Sasuke's faces.
"Thank you." I managed to say, still in shock at the overwhelming kindness she had shown to our family.
Along with Mei's husband and daughter, we started to sing happy birthday to Yoichi. The moment we stopped he took an enormous breath and blew out all of the candles on his cake in one go. Sasuke started to cut the cake into equal slices, Yoichi's eyes fixed onto the knife. Unlike his father he had quite the sweet tooth, which meant he was hoping for a big piece. Placing my hand on Sasuke's I guided the knife a little wider to give Yoichi the enormous slice he wanted.
"Yes!" he cheered, grabbing it before I could even put it on a plate.
After grabbing some ramen, we spent the rest of the day at the beach. Yoichi brought the rest of the cake to share with his new friends, which I thought was very sweet of him, catching him trying to take a bite out of one of their slices was not so sweet though. With the sun beating down on our skin, me and Sasuke lay side by side on our towel, only opening our eyes to check on Yoichi but we could hear his voice above the rest of the children significantly louder and bossier so we knew he was always close by. It felt good to relax for once, I hadn't realised how long it had been since we had just done nothing together. Our lives in Konoha were far from hectic but we had forgotten how important it was to take a break once in a while.
"I'm going to sort things out when we get back." Sasuke said, turning onto his side and resting his hand gently on my stomach. He couldn't wait, he really couldn't, to see my stomach slowly expanding again. It didn't matter if it was a boy or a girl, all that mattered was that he or she would grow up to be another healthy, happy, strong Uchiha. The second job on his lift, after getting me pregnant, was to make sure that I had nothing to worry about, he knew all too well how much stress and worry he had caused me the first time around.
"What do you mean?" I forced my heavy eyelids open and spotted Yoichi burying one of his friends in the sand up to his waist. He caught me looking and understood the disapproving look on my face well enough to stop what he was doing.
"She's not going to speak to you again."
He was talking about Sakura and what she had said to me, something I had forgotten about thanks to our lovely holiday. It wasn't something that Sasuke would be able to let go of as quickly though.
"I think I've sorted it already." I breezed.
"How?" He asked in a tone that clearly suggested he didn't believe me.
"I made her some cookies." I shrugged, pulling him into a kiss.
Virtual high five for anyone that can guess what Emiko was going to say when Yoichi woke up! :D